Youth Match Racing World Championship

Balboa Yacht Club, Newport Beach, California

Price and Anyon plus teams from USA, ITA and GBR are in the hunt for the four semifinal slots.

Two southern hemisphere skippers, George Anyon (NZL) and Harry Price (AUS), who is the #6 ranked match racer in the world, maintained their perfect records going 2-0 on the day and are now 7-0 for the regatta.

Italy's Ettore Botticini was the only skipper to lose ground on the leaderboard today, day two of the Youth Match Racing World Championship.

But with 5 wins on Tuesday, Botticini still remains in third place after seven flights in the "round robin" stage of the championship hosted by Balboa Yacht Club.

While Price and Anyon are leading the pack and are clear favorites for semifinal slots, there are a number of competitors who could join them in that all-important stage of the championship.

Botticini is one point ahead of two American teams led by Greiner Hobbs (Tampa, FL) and local favorite, Charlie Welsh (Newport Beach, CA) who both have four points, as does Matt Whitfield from Great Britain.

Whitfield provided the most exciting moment of the day with a penalty turn at the finish line in his match with Botticini.

Whitfield had built a ten boat-length lead over the Italian skipper, and elected to take the penalty by doing a painfully slow circle around the "pin" end of the finish line as Botticini quickly closed in thanks to some breeze from behind.

As Whitfield completed his penalty turn, Botticini tried to squeeze between Whitfield and the pin, incurring two penalties in the process. Race over, win to Whitfield.

In other races, Cyril Fortin from New Caledonia and representing France had a good day, winning his two races including knocking Botticini from the undefeated ranks.

Johanna Bergqvist and her all-female crew from Sweden won her first race of the series, defeating fellow Scandinavian Felix Jacobsen (DEN).

Again today monsoonal conditions over Mexico caused unusually warm and humid weather for Newport Beach with lighter then usual winds.

It made for challenging conditions for the 12 teams from nine countries as well as the race committee as the shifty breeze never exceeded five knots.

With only seven flights of the scheduled 22 completed after two days, it may be necessary for Principal Race Officer Anne Malledant (FRA) to shorten the double round robin to just one round to assure completion of the semifinals and finals by the regatta's end on Saturday.

Fortunately, the GovCup22 sloops provided to the competitors by Balboa Yacht Club were designed to perform well even in light conditions.